Anfernee Simons Walks Off Nuggets for Trail Blazers' Best Win of the Season

📍 PORTLAND, Ore. — Thursday night was the first time the Trail Blazers won a game at the final buzzer at home since Game 5 of the 2019 playoffs.

Anfernee Simons was in his second year in the NBA at the time, and not a regular part of Portland’s rotation. The final shot in that game was, of course, Damian Lillard’s legendary “bad shot” to send the Oklahoma City Thunder home.

Someone else who was in the building that night was Russell Westbrook. And he was who was isolated on Simons on Thursday, when Simons made a driving layup from the right side of the basket as time expired to beat Denver and snap a six-game losing streak.

Simons was as surprised as everyone else that the Nuggets didn’t send a second defender at him.

“When you’re used to getting double-teamed, sometimes you kind of expect it,” Simons said. “And once you get those opportunities to go one-on-one, you’re like, ‘OK, I’ve got to seize the opportunity.’”

In the fourth quarter, Denver erased a 17-point Portland lead thanks to some cold shooting, and took a two-point lead in the final minute. The Blazers got the ball back with 16 seconds left.

In the timeout, Chauncey Billups drew up a play for Simons, but all he really cared about was keeping the ball out of Denver’s hands, using up the rest of the clock with whatever shot they got.

“I told [Simons], ‘I don’t know who’s going to take the last shot, just make sure that we get the last shot. And if they fire on Ant, I’m comfortable with any of you guys taking the last shot,’” Billups said. “But they never did, so I told Ant, ‘Just get in there and make a play.’ We miss it, don’t give them time to make a play. We’ll try to win in overtime.”

Stylistically, this was the best the Blazers have looked all season. They moved the ball well, won the rebounding battle and took advantage of Denver’s poor defense by generating quality looks. Their box-score numbers don’t show it (they only shot 34.8 percent from three-point range as a team), but they missed several wide-open shots that they’ll take every time.

“We never lost trust,” Billups said. “There were some stretches in the fourth quarter where we were making the pass, making the right play, we just weren’t making the shot. A lot of times with young teams, this has happened with us a lot, you get bored with that when you’re not making the shot.

“I was proud of us for sticking with it tonight. Keep making the right play. Whatever happens, happens. Just keep playing right. I thought we did that.”

With five games left in 2024, and a tough road trip to start the new calendar year, the Blazers needed a win like this.

“It was great to stop the bleeding, for sure,” Simons said. “In a game like this, against a good team, coming off a championship a year ago … that’s the kind of team we want to be. A team that’s fighting for playoff spots every year.”